An Otherworld Awaits
by Zanara
Summary: Just after the defeat of Vegnagun Auron finds himself somehow not on the Farplane, but not on Spira either...


This is my first fanfiction perhaps ever... if you don't count some bad rocketshippy I wrote when I was 12... And I'm having issues with the formatting, yay.

Um, I love Auron, be kind. On with the fic.

* * *

Auron stared in confusion at the hot black surface that loomed before his face. Just minutes before he had seen only pyreflies and smelled the unearthly smell of the flowers that grew on the Farplane, but now he found himself on his hands and knees on some kind of hard substance, which burned his ungloved left hand.

He stood uncertainly, brushing bits of black gravel from his crimson coat and nestling his pained left arm back into its familiar position against his stomach. The old injury in his arm was throbbing again… that meant he was no longer on the Farplane.

The just where the hell was he? Unless something drastic had happened in the two years he'd been away, this was not Spira.

He looked around at the row of shops before him; their signs spelled out in an unfamiliar script that seemed to hover just beyond his understanding. It was in ways very similar to the alphabet used on Spira and yet as strange to him as the Al Bhed tongue. The expanse of flat black rock around him was broken only by white lines painted on its surface and some strange objects that he at first thought might be fiends. He looked around for his katana, which had apparently been flung a few feet to the right of him during his unceremonious arrival. But when he saw a perfectly normal (if strangely dressed) person open the side of the fiendish thing with a mechanical click and step out, he decided the brightly colored object was some form of alien machina.

He slung his sword over his shoulder and proceeded towards the nearest shop in hopes that someone could inform him of his whereabouts.

He was not prepared to see a poster in the window with Yuna, Rikku and Paine's faces on it. Granted, he had talked to Paine only once during their fight with Vegnagun, but he knew enough about their sphere hunting escapades to recognize all three of their faces, changed though Yuna and Rikku might be.

The poster disturbed him for some reason and he entered the shop apprehensibly, tightening his gloved grip on his sword. There was a boy behind the counter who eyed him with something resembling amazement, but Auron was more intrigued by the rows upon rows of small boxes with strange drawings on them that lined the walls of the store. What exactly did they sell here?

He was about to voice that question when something on a small rack in the middle of the shop caught his eye. They were boxes with what looked like tiny statues in them, but what startled him was the fact that one of them was a tiny statue of himself. He crossed the distance to the rack and picked it up, staring at it in horrified bemusement. It was a plastic painted thing, exactly like him and yet somehow unreal looking.

His gaze drifted over the other statuettes and locked onto a terribly familiar blue-haired figure. What the hell? What kind of sick, twisted fool would make a statue in honor of Seymour?

He snatched it off the rack and slammed both the statues down on the counter in front of the young man, who stared blankly up at him.

"Um… that'll be $19.99, Sir Auron," the youth said with an uncertain smile.

"What the hell is this?" Auron growled. "Why are you selling this strange statue of me, and why do you even know who I am? And _why_ in the name of Spira would you make a statue for _Seymour_?"

"Um… aren't you getting just a little _too_ into character? This isn't an anime con you know."

Auron regarded him blankly over the rim of his dark glasses. Perhaps this boy knew nothing after all.

"Did you not just address me as though you knew of me?" he asked in confusion.

"Look, I know you cosplayers love to act like your character and all, and that is a really convincing Auron costume… but it can get seriously annoying. I'm sure next you'll be wanting to pay in gil and when I won't take it you'll threaten me with that… that sword…" he trailed off as he noticed Auron's katana glitter convincingly in the sunlight. "Is that a _real_ sword?" he asked, his eyes widening.

"Fiends don't kill themselves," Auron said, wondering what kind of strange world he had wandered into.

"Look dude, I don't know what kind of freakishly obsessed Auron fan you are, but if you don't get out of here with that thing I'm calling the cops."

"Go ahead," Auron said nonchalantly, not knowing what 'cops' were and not being one to ever be intimidated by anything. "You still haven't answered me. Why do you honor this vile man?" he asked, tapping the box that contained a miniature Seymour with his left hand.

"It's just an action figure. And I have nothing to do with what the store stocks… Yes, hello?" he said, breaking off and speaking into a machina contraption that he pressed to his ear. "Uh, there's a crazy guy with a sword in the Gamestop I work at… No, he doesn't seem particularly dangerous but he basically told me it's a real sword and…"

Auron examined the strange writing on the package of the 'action figure' while waiting for the Gametop employee to finish his conversation. He could understand his name. It looked strange and twisted to his Spiran bred eyes, but he knew what it must say.

"Well, the cops are coming so I suggest you leave."

Auron continued to stare at him blankly.

"You say gil is worthless here?"

The boy rolled his eye. "Yes, I'm sure you really have gil."

Auron produced a small bag of clinking coins from somewhere within his coat and dumped the contents on the counter. He didn't have much, having no use for money on the Farplane, but there was some left over from before his sending. The kid picked up one of the gil pieces and inspected it skeptically. He even bit down on it and Auron wondered idly if he would break his teeth before he believed it was real.

He looked up at Auron and said, "Either you're a really rich, really obsessive cosplayer, or…"

"I'm real?" he said in what might have passed for amusement, reaching up and removing his glasses –something he almost never did willingly- and crooking his scarred eyebrow.

"You… your eye…"

"I would appreciate it if you could tell me where I am."

"Oh shit, I just called the cops on you…"

"Somehow I'm not afraid."

"Of course not… You're _the_ Sir Auron," he said, staring at him in bewilderment.

Auron was mildly embarrassed when the boy cupped his hands in the prayer sign familiar to all Spirans and bowed clumsily. He was not particularly fond of Yevonite traditions but at the moment he was grateful for anything familiar and he knew it was kindly meant.

"How do your people know of Spira?"

"Um, well, that's a long story…"

"I have no idea where I am or how to get back to Spira or the Farplane. Tell me."

"You're not gonna like it."

He seemed relieved to be interrupted by the door opening, but his face fell when he realized it was the police.

"Um, false alarm," he said quickly, trying to keep the police officer from noticing Auron. "You can leave."

Auron didn't move, looking on in unconcern at the man in the odd blue uniform.

The man brushed past the protesting kid, looking at Auron suspiciously. "You're not allowed to have that thing in a public place. You even have a permit for it?"

"Permit?" he asked, narrowing his eye.

"For the sword."

"You are telling me I need permission to wield my katana?" his voice lowered dangerously.

"Oh no.." muttered the young man, who was probably the one who best understood the situation and was becoming quite alarmed.

"I don't know who you think you are, buddy, but you can't just go wandering around with a weapon."

"I spent my life and my death defending the world with this blade. If I cannot then who will?"

"Sir Auron, this isn't Spira, there are no fiends here!"

"What kind of delusion are you people under?" the cop asked incredulously.

Auron glared at him and walked past the man. Obviously, he could expect no help, though he would have liked to talk more to this foreigner who seemed to know about him. But he was not going to hang about and allow his sword to be taken from him. And he had little desire to crush the man in battle.

"Hey, I'm going to have to confiscate that!" he yelled at Auron's retreating back.

Auron did not reply. He swept out the door, hearing distantly the man's muttered excuses for not chasing him.

The boy however, did chase him down, grabbing his empty sleeve and saying "Wait, I need to talk to you. I think the cop's afraid of you so… Don't leave yet."

He nodded silently.

"Well I need to… you know, get back to work."

Auron positioned himself to the side of the door as the boy went back to his job, and waited until the police officer left, looking at him in distrust, before re-entering the shop.

"I have to admit, I am curious. What do you sell here?" he asked as he strode into the store and picked up one of the thin boxes. It had a creature on it that if not a fiend was very close to being one.

"Video games… which is why I know all about you."

"I don't follow you."

"I don't expect you to. God, how should I explain this… You know how Tidus is a dream of the Fayth? In this world… you are very similar…"

"I am a dream?" he asked, stiffening.

"Well, I don't… I don't really know. But in this world you're a character in a story. Your being here goes against everything logical."

"A story…"

"I'm sorry. I don't know how this is possible."

"But… just this morning I was on the Farplane. Just last night I celebrated Yuna's victory over Vegnagun with Braska and Jecht. My tokkuri is still half empty from our part.y," he said, sloshing the contents of the jug around. "How can that be a dream?"

"Tidus was a dream who was able to effect the real world… I don't know how you were able to get here, but…"

"I didn't try to get here. I don't remember what happened before I became aware of being out in that… machina-filled wasteland."

"What, the parking lot?" he half laughed.

"If you have nothing further to tell me…"

"Well, where do you think you're going to go, anyway?" he asked disappointedly.

"I am quite suited to life as a wanderer."

"Wandering in this world is like wandering in Luca. There's nowhere to go without running into people."

"And what would you have me do?" Auron replied, his patience finally beginning to run out.

"Well I was gonna suggest you crash at my place, but beyond that, I don't really know."

Auron blinked. "I think I'll take my chances wandering."

"Sir Auron, I'm telling you, you _can't_ just walk down the street with a huge katana. You'll get arrested."

"No one has ever told me I 'can't'."

"All right then please don't! It's a _really_ bad idea. They'd throw you into prison. Just like what happened to Jecht when he got sent to a strange world…"

This boy really did know everything about Spira.

"How do you know all this? If you know everything about Spira then what is… Braska's wife's name?"

"Er… I don't know, the story only mentions her as an Al Bhed."

"This story… you must show it to me."

"Then you agree to lay low at my apartment for awhile?" he asked hopefully.

"…Yes."

"Great! You can call me Tyja, Sir Auron. That's my name in the Al Bhed language.

Auron shook his hand warily wandering exactly what he was getting into.

His fears were confirmed when 'Tyja' laughed gleefully and said "Wait till I tell all my friends that Sir Auron the legendary guardian is living in my apartment!"


End file.
